Heat exchangers are used, inter alia, in motor vehicles, in the form of a vehicle cooler. Modern vehicle coolers are used in all types of vehicle, from small passenger cars to large long-distance trucks. The vehicle cooler must therefore be adapted to each individual model and variants thereof, based upon the size and performance of the vehicle. The need for different types of vehicle cooler and a specific vehicle cooler of different size is therefore very great.
A conventional vehicle cooler has one or two cooler tanks and a heat-exchanger assembly disposed between them. The heat-exchanger assembly normally consists of rows of pipes and surface extenders situated therebetween; whilst the cooler tank consists of a trough-shaped cover and an end plate, of which the latter is connected to the pipes in the heat-exchanger assembly.
The conventional vehicle cooler can be entirely designed in copper-brass, i.e. both the tank or tanks and the heat-exchanger assembly, or can also have a heat-exchanger assembly in aluminum and a tank having a cover formed in plastic and an end plate formed in an aluminum alloy.
The heat-exchanger assembly of the vehicle cooler is easy to vary in size, since it consists of individual pipes arranged in rows and surface extenders which, broadly speaking, are made to meter-length specification. The two component parts forming the cooler tank are each produced in one piece, however, by deep-drawing of the cover and the end plate in the case of a pure copper-brass cooler, and by injection-molding of the plastic cover and deep-drawing of the aluminum end plate in the case of an aluminum/plastic cooler. For the production of these component parts, regardless of whether carried out by deep-drawing or injection-molding, specific tools are required for each individual cooler tank dimension. This can be seen to constitute a problem, since the cost of production of each tool is considerable.
It is also therefore recognized that there is a need for a solution which is better in relation to known methods, and especially where the production runs for a specific vehicle cooler dimension are small.
The object of the present invention is therefore to realize a heat-exchanger tank which is simple to adapt to heat exchangers of different dimensions.